Nooruse valuuta. „Noorkirjanik“ ja „rühmitus“ nullindatel / The Currency of Youth. The "Young Author" and the "Literary Group" in the 2000s

Priit Kruus

Abstract

The article is focused on literary groups and the emergence of young authors in the 2000s. So far literary researchers have mainly studied the influential literary groups of the first third of the 20th century (Noor-Eesti, Siuru, Tarapita etc.). But literary groups have had a remarkable impact on contemporary Estonian literature as well. Many present-day well-known writers entered the literary scene through groups which were active in the 1990s (e.g. TNT and Erakkond). In the 2000s forming a literary group lost its appeal as young authors found more individual ways to introduce themselves to the public. At the beginning of the 2000s a couple of attempts were made to form new literary groups, but those groups were short-lived and unproductive (e.g. TNT! and !peatus).

Young authors were very active in publishing both on paper and online. The emergence of new publishing channels is one of the reasons why young authors did not have the ambition or need to form groups. For example, in the 2000s literary debuts appeared in the web-based literary club POOGEN and the literary magazine Värske Rõhk (established in 2005). So the 2000s actually saw a new type of convergence: web-based literary clubs and forums. Unfortunately, many of the new channels of the 2000s are already out of reach: the web pages of KLOAAK, noortekas.delfi.ee, People&Poetry, Bahama Press and ThePression have been removed from the internet.

Debuts were welcomed by mainstream media eager to spot the next big thing, new rebels and rule breakers. Being “a young author” became a functioning brand, and youth became a form of currency for beginning writers.